I don’t think that having Tisei in the GOP caucus will change the conservative nature of the caucus—do you really think a Republican congressman from OK or NC will start voting pro-abortion or for the gay agenda because of some fruit from Massachusetts?
But given how ridiculously liberal Tisei is, he’s not going to provide much help—he almost never will vote with conservatives on close votes, or on votes that require a supermajority. So my question is: what’s the best way to elect a moderate-to-conservative congressman in MA-06? (We’re not going to elect a Ted Cruz there, so let’s be realistic; but there’s no reason why we can’t elect a Peter Blute type or a pro-life Scott Brown.)
Assuming that Tierney survives against divided opposition in the Dem primary (which I believe is the likeliest result), the three possibilities are: (i) Tierney gets reelected and then a moderate-to-conservative Republican beats him in the 2016 or 2018 general, (ii) Tierney gets reelected, but either retires or is defeated for renomination in 2016 or 2018, and then a moderate-to-conservative Republican beats the new Democrat nominee in the 2016 or 2018 general, or (iii) Tisei beats Tierney, draws desultory Democrat opposition in 2016 or 2018, a moderate-to-conservative primary challenger beats Tisei in the primary, and then wins the general against the weak Democrat. I’m not sure which of those three scenarios is likelier to yield the result we’re seeking. Thus, I will not exert any effort either to elect or defeat Tisei in the general election.
As I just told GOPster privately, I would vote for the criminal Tierney 1000x before I’d vote for Tisei once. My gut feelings on Trojan Horses like this are never wrong. This guy is REALLY bad news. He was more than half the reason why the GOP Gov/Lt Gov ticket needed to be defeated in 2010. Tierney is just another crook, sauce for the goose in a criminal party.
Here’s a thought: Tisei wins and becomes a solitary but tolerated moderate-liberal vote in a district that would otherwise elect a ‘Rat, like the late Bill Green of Manhattan in the 1980’s. As for the gay thing, as long as he doesn’t make a big deal out of it, we can look the other way.